Magic Review: Balibo

I am always very skeptical of watching Australian movies as going on past experience there has been a tremendous amount of well intentioned attempts at giving the audience an Australiana style experience however, the overall majority have failed. There have been the rare few which have risen above the rest such as Romper Stomper (1992), Strictly Ballroom (1993), The Piano (1993), Shine (1996), Chopper (2000), The Proposition (2005), Candy (2006) and my personal favourite Two Hands (1999). With all of those landmark movies outlined, I follow with the statement that Balibo is probably in the top 3 movies to be produced by Australia. Yes that sounds like a bold statement however when watching a movie I walk out of it and think to myself, did that film tick the three boxes. Those boxes are (a) Good Casting and Direction, (b) Good Story line and adaptation, (c) The Ability to extract emotion from the viewer. In my opinion, Balibo was one of the most balanced and entertaining pictures I have seen in recent years and its ability to extract emotion was moving. The story surrounds the lead up to the invasion by Indonesian forces of East Timor after it succeeded from Portugese rule in 1975. 5 Australian Journalists went to East Timor to report on the invasion however were murdered by Indonesian forces. This led to a young Jose Ramos Horta (Later winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and current President) traveling to Austrlia to recruit war correspondent Roger East (Anthony La'Paglia) to come and report on the condition of the country and look for the missing "Balibo 5" as they are today refered to as. This movie is told through an interview with a lady who was a child at the time of the invasion and worked at the hotel which Roger East was working from. This story will get under the skin of ever Australian who watches it and will make you angry at the manner in which humans can treat each other. The brutal way in which the reporters from the 7 and 9 network and Roger East were killed will appeal to your sense of patriotic emotion and leaves you angry with how the Indonesians acted. There is a point where you must remember that this is a cinematic depiction however the fact remains that 6 Australians went over and none came back. The cast and line up of this movie is superb and I hope the American film industry embraces this instant classic however I have a feeling it will not.

Magic Rating:10/10